Mehmet
Tarhan: Pride in refusing to kill, London picket, 9 December,
International Day of Action.

Written by Didi Rossi, Wages Due Lesbians and
Michael Kalmanovitz, Payday men’s network

Friday 9 December, a very lively
picket demonstrated outside the state-owned Turkish Airlines in Pall
Mall, London, in defence of jailed conscientious objector Mehmet
Tarhan. Tarhan, 27, is a gay Kurdish anarchist who was sentenced to
four years by a military court for “refusing orders”. In prison he
was assaulted and tortured, and twice went on hunger strike to win
the right to prosecute his attackers. He has refused to be
classified as “ill” because he is gay, and exempted on that basis.
Now, the Military Court has ordered a re-trial on 15 December, when
they may try to force him to have an anal examination – judicial
rape.

An unprecedented coming together of
people, countries, anti-war protesters, refuseniks and supporters of
lesbian and gay and other human rights took to the streets around
the world -- 22 cities in Brazil, Finland, France, Germany, Israel,
Italy, Holland, Poland, Serbia, Scotland, Turkey and the US as well
as England. Protestors also highlighted the fight of ex-Black
Panther and award-winning journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal still
broadcasting from death row in the US, arrested 24 years ago this
day.

Support messages for
the Day of Action included one from Noam Kaminer, Israeli
refusenik and father of a refusenik; Alex Izett, whose hunger
strike forced the UK inquiry into Gulf War Syndrome; Stephen Funk,
a gay man jailed for his refusal to serve the US military in the
Iraq war. The Day of Action has highlighted the widespread
refusal of conscientious objectors’ rights: while almost 100
countries impose conscription, only 30 recognise this basic human
right to refuse to kill and be killed. The demonstations have
encouraged 18 MEPs and a Scottish MSP to call for Tarhan’s
immediate release.

Free
Mehmet Tarhan!

Mehmet Tarhan
is a gay anarchist “total” conscientious objector – against all wars
and any alternative to military service. He was sentenced to four
years by a military court for “refusing orders”.

Turkey does not recognise
conscientious objection and provides no alternative to military
service.

For the Turkish military,
homosexuality is an “illness”. Men applying for exemption on grounds
of homosexuality must submit to an anal examination and often provide
a video of sexual intercourse.

This is the equivalent of
the notorious “virginity test” which the Turkish police and army have
used for decades to judicially rape and sexually assault women, in
particular Kurdish women.

Mehmet has refused to be
classified as “ill” because he is gay and has demanded his right to be
a conscientious objector. The Military Court of Appeal quashed the
previous sentence, threatened judicial rape and ordered a re-trial on
15 December.

The Initiative for Solidarity
with Mehmet
Tarhan demonstrates in Turkey

12 July, Wages Due
Lesbians and Payday picket the Turkish embassy in
England...

Jailed since April, Mehmet Tarhan has been attacked and tortured by
prisoners and guards. He has been in solitary confinement for
refusing the prison’s military discipline. He has been on hunger
strike twice (28 and 34 days) demanding that his attackers be
punished. You can write to him at:

5. Piyade Egitim Tugayi,
Askeri Cezaevi, Temeltepe – Sivas, Turkey

We
demand

An end to the mental and physical torture of Mehmet Tarhan, his
immediate release from prison and discharge from the army;

Recognition by Turkey of conscientious objectors’ rights;

Abolition of Turkish military’s definition of homosexuality as an
illness, requiring anal examination and visual “evidence”.

Email & Fax Blitz

Wherever you are on 9
December, let the Turkish authorities know that Mehmet is not alone.

Demanding the right to
conscientious objection, not the right to kill

Mehmet’s case is a signal
for the growing international movement against war and for the right
to conscientious objection. Like many grassroots people, he wants no
part of the “equality” advocated by some in the lesbian and gay
movement: the right to be in the military, that is, the right to kill
and to make war.

“If they
grant gays the “right” to do military service, I won’t be going
around saying “hey let gay people go do their military service.”
They shouldn’t go. Heterosexuals shouldn’t go either”.
Mehmet Tahran

My brother Mehmet

by Emine Tarhan

Since the day he was first taken into custody, our life became a
real nightmare and this continues.

My other brother is doing compulsory service in the same military that
imprisoned and tortured Mehmet, and he doesn’t know what to do.

My mother suffers from heart trouble, diabetes, high cholesterol and
high blood pressure. We hid Mehmet’s imprisonment from her until the
first hearing. The first time she saw him was two months later during
the second trial. Mehmet could barely stand up because of the torture
and couldn’t move his neck. She was not allowed to visit him or give
him a hug. My mother cannot travel because of her health and therefore
cannot go see him.

As long as he is not in solitary confinement and there is no ban on
visiting, I go to Sivas every week. The trip takes 14 hours, I leave
Istanbul on Tuesday and the next day I meet with him for seven hours
behind the wire fence. I leave Sivas the same evening.

My mother, Mehmet and I, used to live in Istanbul.
I had a business. Mehmet was working too. But increasingly I have been
unable to give myself to work. Also I hadn’t been able to leave Sivas
for the first three months because of all that was going on there. His
life threatened by other inmates and detainees in the prison, the
physical and psychological repression of the prison administration,
and the hunger strike he began as a response to all these, changed the
course of our lives. I had to close down my business because I could
not attend to it anymore, my mother and I were evicted from our house
and had to move back to Iskenderun.

Every time I meet him I am
upset, saddened and angered because he is still there.

What conscription is for
Turkish army opens fire -

5
civilians killed, 28 injured

A press release from the
mayor of Yuksekova
dated 18 November
reveals that the Turkish army opened fire on demonstrators in this
Kurdish town,
killing
IslamBartin, Sefer
Bor, Giyasettin Avci, Ersin Menges, Abdulhaluk Geylani and wounding 28
others. About 30,000
people had gathered to protest “government terrorism”, in particular
the bombing by undercover
military of a
bookshop in the town of Şemdinli on 9
November.

”Mehmet Tarhan will not be a
soldier”
(photo: Initiative for Solidarity with Mehmet Tarhan)

In Turkey, the
army is everywhere: in the towns, on the countryside, at innumerable
roadblocks. But
there are
350,000-500,000 men who are refusing conscription. Many are Kurds who
refuse to serve in a military that attacks their own people,
torturing, raping and killing women, children & men, threatening
and evicting villagers to make way for profitable dam projects. This
is what Mehmet Tarhan is refusing to do.

DEFENDING OUR RIGHTS

European governments want to use Turkey’s entry into the
European Union to further undermine all our human rights, in
Europe and globally.

Turkey has been the
most faithful US stooge since the cold war; the US provided the
majority of the armaments Turkey used in its genocidal campaign
against the Kurds in the 1990s. We will not allow Turkey to be
added to Bush’s allies in Europe.

Along with Mehmet,
his family and supporters, we are demanding and defending our
human rights to conscientious objection, to refuse to kill, to
sexual choice, to live in a world free of war and dictatorship.
Free Mehmet Tarhan, and all conscientious objectors!

INVEST IN CARING, NOT KILLING!

DONATIONS
desperately needed for Mehmet’s campaign in Turkey. Please
send cheques to Payday PO Box 287, London NW6 5QU –
we will ensure that all donations get to his family and
campaign